


turnabout is fair play

by sheisraging



Series: little windows [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2627696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheisraging/pseuds/sheisraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Look, my brain may be Swiss cheese, but I’ve known Steve longer than any of you. Sure, he’s a good guy, but out of the two of us, he’s the one who always went around finding trouble. You keep pulling this crap with him and eventually he’s gonna come back at you. And it won’t be fun for any of you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	turnabout is fair play

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to [Ignited](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ignited/pseuds/ignited) for the beta!

It’s mid-morning when the sound of a cabinet clapping shut in the kitchen rouses Bucky from sleep. Steve has already left for his run, and the Tower security is far from lacking, so he has a pretty good idea who he’s going to find when he goes to investigate. Rolling out of bed and rubbing at his eyes, Bucky stretches before pulling on the pair of Steve’s sweatpants that are slung over the chair in the corner. He yanks his hair back into a ponytail and makes his way out into the kitchen of their apartment. 

Bucky heaves a sigh when he sees them; Natasha, perched on the counter with a slight smirk on her lips as she observes Tony and Clint huddled around where Bucky and Steve keep their coffee machine. They all freeze and stare as he shuffles into the kitchen, pulls a bowl down from the cabinet, grabs a box of cereal, a spoon, the milk out of the fridge, and perches himself on a stool at the island counter. 

“We didn’t realize you were home,” Tony offers. 

“Clearly,” Bucky replies quietly, pouring milk over his cereal. “Swapping salt into the sugar container? That’s the best you could come up with? I thought you were some sort of genius, Stark.”

“Are you going to rat us out?” Clint asks.

“S’your funeral,” he mumbles around a mouthful of Corn Pops.

Tony scoffs. “Please, Cap is going to laugh and give us each a playful nudge on the arm, per usual. Anything else would break his barometer for intolerable cruelty.” He pauses. “And it was Barton’s idea. I had better ones.”

“Like what,” Bucky chuckles, “messing with the autocorrect on his phone again?”

“Oh, come on. That one WAS genius,” Tony counters, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter.

“You know it took him all of twenty seconds to figure out and fix that, though, right? He’s not an idiot.” 

“Yet he still only manages to text me with gibberish,” Clint says, carefully balancing the salt container. 

Bucky shovels another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “That’s ‘cause he’s fucking with you.” 

They all stare for a moment before Clint shakes his head, pointing a finger at Bucky. “I call bullshit.”

Bucky eyes them silently, and then smirks. “You guys have some pretty interesting perceptions of Steve,” he says, pointing his spoon toward them. 

Natasha perks up, leaning down toward him and stealing a Corn Pop from his bowl. “Why do you say that?”

Bucky lowers his spoon and shrugs, then rests his elbows on the counter. “Look, my brain may be Swiss cheese, but I’ve known Steve longer than any of you. Sure, he’s a good guy, but out of the two of us, he’s the one who always went around finding trouble. You keep pulling this crap with him and eventually he’s gonna come back at you. And it won’t be fun for any of you.” He picks up his spoon and scoops up more cereal, swatting Natasha’s hand away from the bowl. “But it’s gonna be hilarious for me, so by all means, continue.”

He spoons down the last bite of cereal, tilts the bowl to his mouth, gulps down the milk and shuffles over to the sink, rinsing his dishes and placing them in the washer. 

Natasha eyes him wearily the entire time, eyes darting between Bucky going about his mundane kitchen tasks and Clint, funneling salt into Steve’s sugar container. Bucky dries his hands and turns to leave the room.

“What will he do?” she asks, eyebrows furrowed together. 

Bucky turns to face her, grinning as he backs out of the room with his palms up and a shrug.

———

Bucky’s still lounging around in sweatpants when Steve gets back from his run. He mutes the TV and tilts his head back on the sofa as Steve comes up behind him to plant a sweaty, upside-down kiss on his lips. 

“Coffee?” Steve asks, nuzzling Bucky’s ear. 

“I made some, but there’s salt in the sugar, so we have to drink it black until I go out later and buy some more.” Steve drops his head onto Bucky’s shoulder and lets out an exasperated groan when Bucky pats his hair. “I can go steal all of Tony’s if you want. I’d take it from Clint, but he uses that fake shit and I know you hate it.”

Steve shakes his head, buried in Bucky’s neck. “Not worth the trouble,” he mumbles. “I’ll go with you to the store though, just gotta hop in the shower first.” He reaches down and skims his hand up and under Bucky’s t-shirt, gives him a quick pinch in the side. “Care to join?” he asks, feeling Bucky smile into the side of his face. 

“Kinda have to, now that you’ve managed to rub your sweaty self all over me.” 

Steve huffs a laugh and shoves his head under Bucky’s chin, rubs it around and then quickly pulls away, pushing up from the sofa with a quick nudge to the back of Bucky’s head as he goes. Bucky’s still laughing as he heaves himself off the sofa and follows Steve down the hall to the bathroom, peeling his shirt off as he goes. 

———

A few days later Bucky comes back from a sparring session with Natasha to find Steve sitting on their living room floor surrounded by a pile of shoes. Clint’s shoes, to be precise. And, by the looks of it, just the left shoe from every pair the man owns. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, not looking up from the task at hand, which happens to be meticulously inserting small pebbles into the insoles of each shoe, then carefully sliding the insoles back in place. 

Bucky drops down on the sofa and shakes his head, laughing to himself. 

“What’s funny?” Steve asks, lowering the shoe in his hand and looking up. 

“You did this to me once,” Bucky says. Steve smirks and returns his attention to the shoe. “I walked around for a week thinking I’d lost my mind. Every fucking shoe had some invisible pebble that I could not fucking find. It was so uncomfortable.” 

“Not laughing every time I saw you frantically smacking your shoe against something was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.” Steve grins. “I’m surprised you remember.” He finishes with the sneaker in his hand, adds it to the pile on his right, and picks up the last pebble-free shoe.

“I guess it was irritating enough to have made a lasting impression. Can’t remember why you did it, though.”

“Kept kicking your shoes off and leaving them all over the place,” Steve mutters, brow creased in concentration. “Got tired of tripping on ‘em.”

Bucky shakes his head and stares, wide eyed. “And everyone thinks I’m crazy.” 

Steve chuckles, dropping the last of Clint’s shoes into the completed pile and surveying his work.

“Wait, how’d you manage to get all of his shoes without him noticing?” Bucky asks, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “And, more importantly, how do you plan on putting them back?”

Steve rises and starts tossing the shoes into a laundry bag. “Bruce managed to talk him into a yoga session today, so I grabbed them when he headed down for that.” He cinches the bag closed. “And since you’re about to join them, I should have no problem putting these all right back where I found them.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “It’s a good thing I like you, you know.” 

Steve leans down and kisses him, smiling against his mouth. “It’s a good thing.”

He nips at Bucky’s lower lip playfully, then pulls away. “Text me if Clint is on his way up?”

Bucky grins and lets Steve pull him out of the chair. “Okay, but it’s going to cost you.”

Steve laughs, tossing the bag over his shoulder, pulling Bucky toward the door, and swatting his ass once they’re in the hall. “Have you ever known me not to repay a favor?”

———

Clint’s realization of what’s happened comes gradually. 

At first he’s just uncomfortably walking around the Tower—his step not quite as jaunty. His usual sneak attacks abandoned and replaced with noisy grunts and mumbled curses as he limps into rooms. He shuffles his feet, knocks the toes of his shoes against corners and chair legs, kicks at one heel with the other. He pauses and wriggles his left foot around, brow furrowed, mouth curved to a frown as he ponders his discomfort. He tries a different pair of shoes every day, but within a few steps, his confusion returns and he’s again preoccupied with scuffing his foot against anything that he comes into contact with.

About a week in, he drops down on the common room sofa with an angry huff. Bucky’s sprawled on the other end, sipping a coffee and scrolling through the newsfeed on his tablet. He steals a glance at Clint as he tugs off his shoe and bangs it against the table edge and has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking. 

“Trouble?” He asks casually, while Clint mutters to himself.

“Something in my shoe,” Clint replies. “Something in all of my fucking shoes, apparently. Except there’s nothing there.” He drops the shoe to the floor and crosses his foot over his knee, peeling off his sock and examining the sole of his foot. He leans over and bends his toes back, looking closely at the ball of his foot and then suddenly extends his foot out toward Bucky.

“Do you see anything? There’s nothing there right? Is there something there?” he asks, wriggling his toes in the air.

“Get your fucking foot away from me,” Bucky says, not looking up from the article he’s pretending to read. 

Clint whines, pulling his foot back onto his knee. Bucky has a brief flash of himself sitting on the weathered floor of his old Brooklyn apartment, digging pebbles out of each of his shoes while Steve chuckled at him from over the top of his sketch book. For a moment he feels bad, but then he reminds himself of all the pranks Clint has either pulled or helped pull on Steve and decides to let this play out. He did try to warn them, after all. 

A few days later, Bucky, Natasha, Steve, and Sam are sitting in the common room— they’d intended to watch a movie, but wound up talking over it until the movie played itself out and was long forgotten. Steve and Bucky are side by side on one sofa bench, Bucky’s arm draped behind Steve’s shoulders, Sam is sprawled out on the adjacent bench with his head propped up on the arm rest, Natasha is curled up in a large, cushioned chair with her feet tucked under her. They’ve gone from official business (an upcoming op that Hill had sent some intel on), to the standard variety mocking of one another (today had included Sam making various sound effects every time Bucky had let his metal fingers drift through Steve’s hair), to dinner (Chinese via delivery, because nobody felt like going out), to a comfortable lull with the occasional blip of chatter. 

It’s one of the quiet lulls that Clint interrupts when he storms in and dumps a handful of pebbles into Steve’s lap. 

Steve raises an eyebrow and Bucky finds he’s no longer able to stifle the laugh he’s been keeping in for over a week. 

“It’s not funny,” Clint exclaims, “I threw out half of my shoes!”

“What did he do?” Natasha asks, paranoia creeping into her face as she looks back and forth between Clint and Steve. “Rogers, what’d you do to his shoes?”

“Hey, would y’all keep it down?” Sam asks. “Can’t anybody get a nap in peace in this place?” He rolls over and plants his face against the back of the sofa pulling a pillow over his head mumbling something about loud-ass superheroes. 

Steve just grins, saying nothing as he plucks the pebbles off of himself and the sofa, checking to make sure none have escaped when he stands up. He carefully tips the handful of stones into a potted plant in the corner and turns back to Clint’s expectant stare. 

“Well, I think I’m gonna turn in,” Steve says, dusting off his hands with a grin that makes Clint’s eyes widen. Bucky doesn’t bother suppressing another laugh. 

“What?! Rogers—you… This isn’t…” He pauses and points at Natasha. “What about her? She helped, you know. And Stark, too. He was there. He wanted to do much worse! I stopped him!”

Clint ducks to avoid the pillow that Natasha sends hurtling at his head. She rises to her knees on the chair, looking between them and making a grab for Steve’s arm. “What did you do to his shoes?”

Steve shrugs and brushes past Clint, heading toward the elevator. Bucky heaves himself off the sofa with a happy sigh and claps Clint on the shoulder. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He smiles, turning to wink at Natasha before he follows Steve down the hall.

The sound of Clint and Natasha bickering travels with them until the elevator door closes with a ding. 

Inside the elevator, Bucky folds his arms across his chest and stares at Steve with a smirk. “Are you proud of yourself?”

Dropping his head and scrubbing his hand over the back of his neck, Steve finally allows himself a laugh as he nods. “You know what, yeah.”

His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles in Bucky’s direction.

“I am.” 

———

Bucky doesn’t have to ask Steve what his plans are for the others—it becomes obvious fairly quickly what he has in mind for Natasha, and Bucky realizes that he probably set the plan in motion himself by warning her the way her did. 

Whenever Steve walks into a room, Natasha sits up a bit straighter. Steve laughs and her head whips around, eyes questioning, frowning with a “what’s so funny?” look set upon her face. Bucky notes that every time Steve pats her on the back or even nudges her shoulder, she reaches behind her as if expecting to find a ‘Kick Me’ sign stuck there. 

———

Stark is the hardest target. Everything the man does is so elaborate, that it only makes sense to retaliate in a similar fashion. He’s a tough mark, and Bucky can tell that Steve’s got something in mind, but is waiting for the opportunity to present itself, which it does, in the shape of Tony and Pepper’s anniversary. 

Tony decides to whisk Pepper away on a “Do Not Disturb Us Or the Wrath of God Shall Befall You” vacation (that is the exact note they all receive) and after a quick celebratory dinner with the rest of the team, the two leave town. 

Bucky wakes up to a whole lot of empty bed, three nights in a row, before he’s had enough and decides to go searching. He finds himself in the hallway heading toward Tony’s lab, cursing himself for padding out in just his sweatpants—the tiled floor is freezing him from his toes up. The sliding door, usually sealed tight even when Tony is working, stands ajar, and from inside, Bucky can hear Duke Ellington playing very softly, and the ever exasperated JARVIS speaking over the music.

“But, sir, I don’t think Mr. Stark has authorized such a change—”

Bucky leans against the doorway and watches as Steve interrupts, eyes never leaving his task—which seems to be trying to get Tony’s slow robot to carve a shape into some kind of metal plate with a blow torch. The robot, so far, does not seem to be getting it.

“JARVIS, it’s a surprise, like I said—an anniversary present. Trust me. Ms. Potts knows all about it. If you want, I can call her right now—” Steve reaches into the pocket of the hoodie he’s wearing and makes a show of pulling out his phone.

“Sir, I’ve been given explicit orders not to allow any phone calls. I must ask that you not call.” 

“Well, then I’m going to have to ask that you trust me and let me finish working on Mr. Stark’s surprise—and not spoil it for him. Do I have your word?”

Bucky looks up toward the ceiling and shakes his head when he hears the A.I. audibly sigh. He hates to admit it, but he’s not sure he’ll ever get used to a world where you can talk to your house and it talks back to you. Granted, he understands JARVIS is a bit (a lot) more than that, but still. 

“You’ll want to ask Sergeant Barnes to keep this surprise a secret too, then, sir.” JARVIS advises, causing Bucky to leap away from the door at the sound of his name.

Steve’s head whips around as Bucky stumbles into the lab. 

“Buck,” Steve slides off the stool he’s perched on and makes his way around the lab tables and over to Bucky, slow robot trailing wobbly behind him. “I thought you were asleep.”

Bucky shrugs a shoulder. “I woke up and you were gone… Third night in a row. Got curious.” He grins. “Should have known you were up to—”

Steve puts a finger to his lips and then pecks them with his own.

“Not in front of you know who,” he mumbles, winking as he backs away. 

Bucky jumps back suddenly, feeling a claw wrap around the metal of his left wrist. “What the—Steve, what the hell—”

“Dum-E, hey, let go,” Steve says, wrapping his hand gently around the neck of the robot. 

“Dum-E? That’s its name?” Bucky asks, casting a piteous look at the robot now attached to his arm.

“That’s what Tony calls it.” 

Dum-E loosens its grip but nudges up against Bucky’s arm and holds there.

“I think it likes you,” Steve says with a smile. “This could be useful.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, and resists the urge to pull away from the robot now nudging its claw into his hand. “What kind of weird shit have you got going on in here, Rogers?”

Steve laughs and ducks his head. “Nothing weird. It’s just being… disagreeable.”

“It’s holding my hand,” Bucky says, lifting his hand and bringing Dum-E’s claw with it. 

“Perfect. Follow me.” Steve nods toward the lab table he’d been at before and heads back that way. 

Bucky sighs and looks down at Dum-E, trying to link itself with his arm. “Okay buddy, let’s go.” He extends his arm out and lets Dum-E wrap its claw completely around his wrist, easily leading the robot back over to the table and perching himself on a stool beside Steve. Dum-E rolls between them, still clutching Bucky’s wrist. Bucky rests his elbow on the table and props his chin up on his hand, looking expectantly at Steve. 

“Hey, Dum-E,” Steve says, drawing the robot’s attention. It swivels around toward the panel Steve has propped up. He holds out the blowtorch and Dum-E seems to waver between taking the torch and letting go of Bucky. 

Bucky can’t believe this is what he got out his warm, comfortable bed for. He takes a deep breath and turns his wrist a bit until Dum-E loosens its grip. The robot droops its neck, but Bucky drapes his arm across the bot’s lower half and wriggles his fingers at it. “There ya go, buddy. She can see you just fine.”

At that, Dum-E perks up, takes the blowtorch from Steve, and sets about whatever task he’s been trying to accomplish earlier. 

Steve watches for a moment before looking across at Bucky. “She?”

Bucky shrugs. “Seemed like the thing to say.” He nods his head back in a huge yawn. “And this is weird shit, Steve. I’m going back to sleep. Wake me when it’s over.”

And with that, he folds his other arm on to the table and drops his head into it and promptly passes out.

———

Bucky wakes to a strange prodding in his armpit. “Steve, quit it. I’m sleepin’,” he mumbles into the crook of his elbow, not bothering to lift his head. The prodding continues, however, until he’s forced to move his arm and finds it once again stuck in Dum-E’s vice-like grip.

“Oh, it’s you.” Bucky says groggily. He sits up and looks around the lab. Everything seems to be back in its right place—so much as it has one. Steve is humming to himself, having turned the music off, or having asked JARVIS to do so—Bucky isn’t sure how that works, exactly. 

“JARVIS, would you run the diagnostic, please,” Steve says, looking at a monitor he seems to have pulled up from thin air.

“Initiating now, Captain Rogers.” 

Bucky slides off the stool and pads over to stand behind Steve, Dum-E trailing along beside him. “What time is it?”

“Little after 4 A.M.,” Steve answers casting a sheepish look at Bucky. He nods toward Dum-E and Bucky’s arm. “Sorry. I should have let you get back to bed.”

Bucky shrugs and leans against Steve’s back, propping his chin up on his shoulder and looping his free arm around his waist. “You’ll make it up to me.” 

Steve links their fingers where Bucky’s hand rests on his stomach and nods as he watches numbers and calculations fly across the screen.

“Diagnostic complete, sir. The suit is in 100% working order,” JARVIS announces.

Steve nods again and waves his free hand at the screen, sending it back from whence it came. Bucky lifts his left hand to stifle a yawn and almost claws himself in the face. He wriggles his wrist around until Dum-E loosens its grip and lets go. 

“Time to say goodnight, buddy,” Bucky says, as he and Steve head for the door.

Dum-E hurriedly reaches out again, but Bucky backs away. The robot droops its neck so severely that Bucky has to stop himself from offering his arm back over.

“Hey hey, I’ll um… we’ll come visit… okay?” he says instead.

Dum-E perks up and tentatively reaches its claw out toward Bucky’s metal hand. Bucky holds out his hand once more, letting Dum-E wrap the prongs of its claw around his fingers and squeeze gently. The robot lets him go and flexes the claw in a kind of wave as he does. 

Steve is grinning from ear to ear when Bucky joins him in the hall. 

“Shut up,” Bucky says right away.

“What! That was… sweet,” Steve says, laughing. 

“Whatever you did in there better have been worth me having my hand bein’ made out with by a robot. That’s all I have to say,” Bucky replies, nudging Steve’s shoulder with his own. 

They’re about halfway down the hall when they cross paths with Natasha.

“You’re up early,” Bucky says as they approach each other. 

“Couldn’t sleep.” She eyes them suspiciously, noting the direction they’re coming from. “What were you doing in Stark’s lab?” she asks, and then looks them up and down, noticing that Bucky is clad only in pajama pants. 

Neither of them say a word as her eyes narrow. “Did you have sex in there?” she asks, a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. 

Bucky and Steve both break into grins at the same time.

“No, Nat” Steve starts with a quiet laugh, “We didn’t have sex in Tony’s lab.” He moves past her and continues down the hall before adding, “Why would we use a lab table when your bed is so much more comfortable?”

Bucky eyes widen and he only has about three seconds to appreciate the look abject horror on Natasha’s face before he sprints down the hall and into the elevator after Steve. 

“She’s going to kill us,” Bucky laughs as Steve’s hands run down his sides, resting on his hips and pressing him against the elevator wall. 

Steve ducks his head down, grinning against Bucky’s lips. “I think we’ll be all right.” 

———

Public appearances are none of their favorite things. They all find them annoying, and frankly, a bit tiresome. Especially the events where they’re requested in uniform for post-conference photo calls. Steve has never wanted any part in them—they remind him too much of his showgirl days. The only one who ever enjoys the press and vamping for them is Tony, so he’s become the elected mouthpiece. Everyone else just sort of hangs back and lets him do his thing. Yes, he’s flashy and obnoxious and an unbelievable ham, but the general consensus is: better him than me. So here they all are, (with the exception of Thor, who has that convenient “not from this planet” excuse) suited up, uncomfortably seated at a mic’ed table, a full press room before them, and Tony is late. 

Pepper is frantically pacing just off to the side, phone in a white-knuckled grip, her voice rising just a bit every few words as her heels click across the floor. Bucky can’t hear the exact conversation, but he’s been able to discern that there’s something amiss with the suit. He glances at Steve and he just knows. The tiny upturn at the corner of Steve’s mouth is barely noticeable, the slight lift in his brow when he looks back in Bucky’s direction is the picture of innocence, but he knows. 

Bucky slings his arm over the back of Steve’s chair and leans toward him.

“This is why we were in the lab that night, isn’t it?” he asks, his demeanor casual, voice too low for the others to hear.

Steve crosses his ankle over his knee and leans into him, tilting his head back slightly, lips to Bucky’s ear. “No idea what you’re talking about.” 

Bucky just stares at him for a moment and is about to respond when Pepper’s voice rises three octaves in an angry “NOW” and a moment later, there’s the loud, clanging telltale sound of Iron Man touching down. The doors to the pressroom open and he’s striding toward them as quickly as he can in thousands of pounds of metal. 

It’s hard to tell what kind of mood Tony is in, since his mask is still down, but the suit is neon pink with purple highlights and the arc reactor glows from a heart-shaped cutout, so Bucky is guessing it’s not a very good one. 

For a moment the entire press pit is just frozen. Nobody knows what to make of the situation, but then the first flash goes off and hundreds follow suit. 

Bucky can see Pepper standing off to the side of the room, just barely able to conceal the fit of laughter threatening to tumble out of her, the back of her hand pressed tightly to her mouth as she stares at Tony in all his bright pink glory. Clint and Natasha both are wide-eyed, frozen in the middle of their quiet conversation and unable to look away. Bruce drags a hand over his face and drops his head back, eyes toward the ceiling, though Bucky spots the trace of a slight smile on his lips. 

Tony approaches them and pauses in front of Steve, glowing eyes of the Iron Man not nearly as threatening when they’re angled and shaped like little hearts. Steve stares back, eyebrows slightly lifted. The only sounds in the room seem to be the constant click of camera shutters. Tony lifts the mask and stares down at Steve for real, but Steve says nothing and continues to return his stare. 

After a moment, Tony heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes. He lifts his hand and produces a small white flag. 

Steve eyes it for a moment and then huffs a quiet laugh. He shakes his head, but accepts the token with a nod, rolling the little flagpole between his thumb and index fingers. 

The press have a ton of questions; the entire point of today’s call is lost and instead they’re begging to be allowed in on what they’ve just witnessed. Tony somehow manages to deflect them all without revealing much of anything. 

Bucky doesn’t really bother paying attention to what winds up being said, he’s used to tuning out press conference speak by now. He and Steve sit thigh to thigh, phones low in their laps, faces neutral as they send each other the filthiest messages they can think of. A battle to see who’s cheeks turn pink first.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://sheisraging.tumblr.com) and be amazed at how many photos of Chris Evans I can reblog in one week!


End file.
